5H I! 




REPORT OF COMMIS8IO 



APPOINTED 



UNDER RESOLVE OF 1856, CHAP. 58, 



CONCERNING THE 



S^rtifirial ^propagation of Jfisjj, 



OTHER DOCUMENTS. 



BOSTON: 

WILLIAM WHITE, PRINTER TO THE STATE. 
1857. 



A* 



SENATE....No. 193. 



dommontjocciltl) of itfa05acl)U0ctt0. 



Executive Department, Council Chamber, } 
Boston, May 6, 1857. ( 

To the President of the Senate : — 

I transmit, herewith, for the use of the legislature, the 
Report of the Commissioners, appointed under Resolve of 
1856, chapter 58, concerning the Artificial Propagation of Fish. 

HENRY J. GARDNER. 



ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 



tiTrnnmomtfcattl) of illassadjusctte. 



Boston, May 5, 1857. 

Sra : — I have the honor to transmit, herewith, to your Excel- 
lency, the Report of the Commissioners appointed under the 
Resolve of the legislature, passed May 16, 1856, respecting the 
Artificial Propagation of Fish, and accompanying documents. 
Also a statement of the accounts of each of the Commissioners, 
for their services and expenses. 

With great respect, I am 

Your Excellency's o'bt serv't, 

R. A. CHAPMAN. 

His Excellency, Henry J. Gardner, Governor of the Common- 
wealth of Massachusetts. 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 



Commotrawctltl) of iitassacljttsctta. 



To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of 
Massachusetts in General Court assembled. 

The subscribers, having been appointed commissioners under a 
legislative Resolve, passed on the 16th day of May last " to 
ascertain and report to the next General Court, such facts, 
respecting the artificial propagation of fish as may tend to 
show the practicability and expediency of introducing the 
same into this Commonwealth, under the protection of law," 
respectfully submit the following 

REPORT: 

Their commissions having been issued on the 16th of June, 
they did not meet till the first week in July. At that meeting 
they were informed, that they were expected, not only to ascer- 
tain and report such facts, respecting the artificial propagation 
of fish, as had already been made public elsewhere, but such 
as they might ascertain by actual observation and experiment, 
within the limits of this State. 

The sum appropriated to this object by the Resolve, seemed 
to indicate that such experiments were contemplated, though 
on a limited scale. As Mr. Atwood has been all his life a prac- 
tical fisherman, and has also become a learned ichthyologist, his 
associates in the commission, deemed it their duty to intrust 
him with the sole charge of making such observations and 
experiments, as the. season would permit. 

At a subsequent meeting, held in August at Provincetown, 



4 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

it was agreed, that he should confine his attention to trout, and 
that he should proceed, either to Sandwich or such other place 
as he might select, as soon as the spawning season should 
approach, and devote as much time to the subject, as he might 
think proper. This was all that could be done, there being no 
other species of fish, whose spawning season would permit 
experiments to be made before the Commissioners were required 
to report. Nor did the Commissioners suppose that experiments, 
with any other species of fish, could be necessary; for if the 
spawn of trout can be fecundated and hatched by artificial 
means, it is obvious that similar processes may be applied to the 
spawn of other fish. 

Guided by such knowledge as could be obtained from books 
and other sources, Mr. Atwood commenced his observations on 
the 13th of September, and has made a report on the subject 
which is herewith submitted. It may be sufficient to remark in 
relation to it, that though he did not succeed in hatching any 

. eggs, yet he was successful in producing their fecundation, and 
has thus demonstrated its practicability, and he was also able to 

« observe the growth of the fishes till they died just before the 
time for their hatching. 

The Commissioners take pleasure in expressing their obliga- 
tions to Professors Agassiz and Wyman, who have favored Cap- 
tain Atwood with advice and instruction, in respect to his course 
of proceeding. 

We have also collected such information, on the subject of 
fish breeding, as we found accessible, and are happy to find 
that it has attracted so much attention elsewhere, as to render 
any further experiments at the expense of the Commonwealth, 
unnecessary. Nor can it be necessary, that the Commissioners 
should give any detailed account of the processes adopted in 
breeding fish, since those who may be interested in the subject 
can find all the information they need, in books that can be 
readily obtained. In 1854, a small volume which is sold for 
about seventy-five cents, was published by the Messrs. Appleton 
of New York, entitled " a complete treatise on artificial fish 
breeding, including the reports on the subject, made to the 
French Academy and the French government, and particulars 
of the discovery as pursued in England ; translated and edited 
by "W. H. Fry." The Commissioners would recommend to 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 5 

those, who desire information in respect to fish breeding, to 
purchase, either this volume or another to which they will also 
refer. 

In the Agricultural Year Book, for 1856, by D. Ames Wells, 
pp. 347-50, the Commissioners found an interesting article, 
containing an account of some experiments made by Drs. Ackley 
and Garlick, of Cleveland, Ohio. The perusal of this article 
induced the chairman to address those gentlemen, asking for 
further information in respect to their operations. Dr. Gar- 
lick kindly replied, informing us that he was preparing a work 
on the subject, and that he would furnish us with some of the 
proof sheets, in season to enable us to refer to them in our 
Report. These sheets were not received, until the 12th of April, 
and our Report has been delayed on that account. So far as the 
Commissioners can judge, from the portions which have been 
received by them, they believe it will be preferable to the work 
of Mr. Fry, inasmuch as it contains an account of experiments 
which have beCn instituted in this country. We suppose the 
volume will be issued in a short time. The following extract 
from pp. 18, 19, contains an account of the process of artificial 
fecundation. 

" The following directions, if strictly adhered to, will be 
crowned with success in the hands of any one : — 

" The eggs of fish are not sufficiently matured to be success- 
fully impregnated until the fish is engaged in depositing the 
eggs ; therefore, no attempt should be made to extrude the eggs 
artificially until the fish has been seen or known to deposit 
them ; but they should be extruded as soon as possible after the 
fish has commenced depositing them, for the reason that more 
eggs can be secured. 

" The parent fish should be taken with nets while on their 
spawning beds ; the size of the nets will, as a matter of course, 
depend upon the size of the stream, or other waters, where the 
fish are engaged in spawning ; for small trout streams, the com- 
mon landing net of the angler is sufficiently large. 

" After one or more pairs of fish are thus taken, they should 
be placed in a tub or bucket of water ; the female is then to be 
held in the left hand, and a gentle pressure made with the right 
hand upon her abdomen. At the time of the pressure, the 



6 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

right hand should be carried downward ; if the eggs are mature, 
they will flow from the fish with a very slight pressure, and are 
to be received in an earthen vessel, partly filled' with clean 
water ; then treat the male fish in precisely the same manner. 
The spermatic fluid from the male being received into the ves- 
sel, containing the water and eggs, the eggs should then be stirred 
about very freely in the water, and suffered to remain ten or 
fifteen minutes, when the water should again be changed, and 
after a short time this change should be again repeated. It is 
thought by some persons, that the eggs should be stirred or 
rinsed, and the water changed before the spermatic fluid is 
added. The precaution, I think, is a good one, as it serves to 
remove any mucus, with which the eggs are more or less covered, 
and which, to some extent, may prevent a perfect contact of 
the sperm with them. 

" A very small portion of the spermatic fluid is sufficient to 
impregnate the eggs of one female ; in fact, the sperm of one 
male is sufficient to impregnate the eggs of half a dozen females." 

Chapter 2d contains directions for the treatment of the eggs 
after fecundation. It is very simple, and the apparatus is cheap 
and easily constructed by any man of ordinary ingenuity. 
Chapter 3d contains directions for the transportation of the 
fecundated eggs, and it has been found that they can be carried 
to great *'. .Lances. The French government has an establish- 
ment for the artificial propagation of fish, from which the spawn 
are carried to every part of the empire, and to most of the 
adjoining countries, and it is not doubted, that they may be 
transported across the Atlantic, without injury. 

The experiments of Messrs. Ackley and Garlick, commenced 
in 1853. Having in their possession a large spring of living 
water, near the city of Cleveland, they formed an artificial 
pond by means of a dam, and placed in it about one hundred 
and fifty trout, which they brought from Lake Superior. They 
afterwards procured about forty more from Port Stanley in Can- 
ada. .From this beginning, they have proceeded with complete 
success ; and other gentlemen in their neighborhood have 
procured trout from them, and commenced the business of fish 
breeding. It cannot be necessary to lengthen this Report by 
any further notice of these operations, for any person desiring 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 7 

full information in respect to them, will not fail to purchase the 
book. 

A few weeks since, the attention of the Commissioners was 
called to an article in the newspapers, containing an account of 
experiments made in fish breeding by Mr. E. C. Kellogg, of 
Hartford. The chairman was induced to call on Mr. Kellogg, 
and takes this occasion to express his obligations to that gentle- 
man for his kind attentions. Mr. Kellogg commenced his opera- 
tions in 1855, at a small spring in Simsbury, and succeeded in 
raising a few trout by artificial breeding. Last fall, not having 
time to devote to the matter, at such a distance from home, he 
constructed a small apparatus in his cellar, and supplied 
it with a small rill of water from the pipe of the city aque- 
duct. The water of this aqueduct is supplied by the Con- 
necticut River, and has proved to be of excellent quality for the 
purpose. Mr. Kellogg has a considerable number of trout 
which have been hatched so long as to have cast off their umbil- 
ical sack, commenced taking food, and taken the familiar form 
and assumed the familiar habits of trout. He has others that 
are but just hatched, and have the appearance described in the 
books. He has also a quantity of trout which he caught with 
a hook and placed in a tub in his cellar, where he has made 
interesting experiments in respect to their food. Among other 
things, he has found that leaving the meat he has given them 
to putrify in the water, does not affect their health injuriously. 
Mr. Kellogg has lately addressed a letter on this subject to H. 
A. Dyer, Esq., Secretary of the State Agricultural Society, 
which will soon be published by the Natural History Society of 
Hartford. It is to be hoped that he will furnish the public, 
through the press, with further accounts of his experiments. 
"We cannot doubt that the opinion expressed by him is correct, 
viz. : that any man of ordinary intelligence may engage suc- 
cessfully in the business of artificial fish breeding, but that it 
needs some experience, which books cannot supply. No one 
need be surprised, if some of his first experiments should prove 
to be failures. 

For further information contained in books on the subject, 
the Commissioners would refer to various numbers of Silliman's 
Journal of Science ; especially to the numbers for May, July, 
and September, 1853, May and July, 1855, and March and 



8 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

May, 1856. The scientific annual by D. A. Wells also contains, 
in sQveral of the volumes, brief articles on the subject. We 
also found an article on Pisciculture in the Revue des Deux 
Mondes for June 15, 1854, by Jules Haimes, containing an 
excellent history of the subject, with many valuable observa- 
tions. Not having leisure to translate it, the task was kindly 
undertaken and performed by Mr. Gamaliel Bradford. As the 
publication of this article appears to us to be desirable in order 
that full information may be spread before the public, we trans- 
mit it herewith, in order that the legislature may make such 
use of it as they may think proper. 

Several years since, a work was published in France by M. 
Coste, from which the American writers have derived much of 
their information. A new and improved edition of that work 
was published in 1856, but we believe it has not been translated. 
It can be easily obtained through importing booksellers. Its 
instructions, in respect to the transportation of fish for breeding, 
the transportation of spawn, the preparation of spawning beds, 
and the keeping of fish in inclosures, deserve attention. 

The report of M. Millet to the Societie" Imperiale Zoologique 
d'acclimatation, in March, 1856, contains valuable suggestions 
in respect to the planting of trees on the borders of streams 
where fish are raised. 

In France, the artificial propagation of fish was commenced 
by two illiterate fishermen a few years ago. Their wonderful 
success soon attracted the notice of men of science, and after- 
wards of the government; and it is now regarded as a matter 
of great public concern. Information has been collected and 
experiments have been made at the public expense in respect to 
every variety of valuable fish, to be found in their fresh waters, 
and very recently attention has been directed to the multiplica- 
tion of various species of marine fish, on and near the sea shore. 
It is found that the supply of food from this source can be 
greatly increased. 

In this country, the supply of food is so abundant, that the 
preservation and improvement of the fisheries in our fresh waters, 
has been much neglected. The increase of our population for 
half a century or a century to come, will be likely to give to 
them a new importance. Even now, we have found a much 
greater interest in them than we had supposed to exist. 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 9 

Massachusetts abounds in streams suitable for trout ; and 
from many of them, large quantities are taken every year. 
But there are very few instances, where the owners of the lands 
over which the streams flow, take any pains to preserve or to 
multiply their stock of fish, or even to claim them as their pro- 
perty. An implied license is given to all persons to fish at their 
pleasure. Hence the stock of fish is greatly diminished and 
very few fishes grow to their full size. They are not regarded 
by their owners as valuable property, and fishing is pursued as 
a mere pastime. 

But this state of things cannot last long. As wealth increases, 
trout are sought as a luxury, and they have already acquired a 
market value so great, that the proprietors of streams might 
profitably raise them for market. There are many persons who 
need rural exercise, and who would cheerfully pay a liberal rent 
to the proprietors of a stream, well stocked with trout, for the 
exclusive right of fishing. We believe there are many farms on 
the hilly and mountainous parts of Massachusetts, containing 
trout streams, that, with a little pains, might be made to yield 
a greater income in this way, than the land itself. Much might 
be done to increase their value without resorting to artificial 
breeding. The preparation of suitable ponds or pools of deep 
water, and of gravelly beds, suitable for spawning, with slight 
guards to prevent the destruction of the fish by freshets, would 
greatly increase the stock. But the process of artificial propa- 
gation, is so simple and easy, that when trout become an object 
of care, we cannot doubt that they will be multiplied and pro- 
tected by this method. Many millions of fine trout may thus 
be produced annually, and what is now regarded as a mere 
temptation to waste time, may be made, not only to minister to 
luxury and health, but become an important branch of produc- 
tive industry. In addition to this, fish ponds with borders of 
trees and shrubbery add to the beauty of a landscape, and must 
increase the value of a farm. 

The spawn of fish are so numerous, that the stock can be in- 
creased with immense rapidity ; and by the exercise of proper 
skill, a large proportion of the spawn can be hatched. In Eng- 
land, out of 300,000 salmon spawn, 275,000 were hatched by 
artificial means. 

Our large streams, and especially those whose current is com- 
2 



10 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

paratively sluggish, and which, on that account, are unsuitable 
for trout, might be made to yield a large stock of various other 
species of marketable fish, such as are adapted to their waters. 
Those large ponds and reservoirs, which have been created to 
supply water-power to our numerous manufacturing establish- 
ments, might all be turned to a profitable use in this way. It 
has been suggested that some of the species of excellent fish 
that are found in our Western lakes, would thrive in these waters. 
The variety might also be increased by. the importation of eggs 
from Europe. In many of them, nothing needs to be done but 
to increase the quantity of fish they already contain by artificial 
propagation, and by protecting the young fishes from destruc- 
tion, till they become sufficiently large to protect themselves 
against their enemies. 

The fisheries of the Merrimack River having been made the 
subject of investigation during the present session, we need not 
refer to them particularly. An intelligent gentleman has esti- 
mated their value at $16,000 annually ; the fish consisting princi- 
pally of bass, shad and alewives. 

In the Connecticut River, shad and salmon were formerly very 
abundant. The salmon disappeared many years since. The shad 
still continue to ascend the river, as far as the artificial obstruc- 
tions will permit them to go. When the 4am of the Hadley 
Falls Company was erected at Holyoke, a few years since, the 
company purchased and extinguished all the fishing rights above 
that point. But the shad still continue to ascend to the foot of 
the dam, where they are taken in considerable numbers, and 
they are said to have numerous spawning beds between that 
point and the head of Enfield Falls. But the proprietors of 
the locks and canals at Enfield, have so far obstructed their 
ascent within two or three years past, that it is believed they 
will soon leave the river entirely, unless something is done for 
their preservation. This obstruction may be obviated without 
much expense, and it is believed that, by means of artificial 
propagation, the river below Hadley Falls, might be vastly better 
stocked with shad than it has ever yet been. An establishment 
for this purpose might be erected in this State, and the mouth 
of the Agawam River has been spoken of as a very suitable 
place. It is believed that these fish always return from the sea 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 11 

to the river where they were hatched. The ascent is at their 
spawning season, and they are then in the best condition for use. 

Those which are taken for market within the limits of this 
State are generally in such a condition that their spawn and 
milt may be used for artificial fecundation. It has been esti- 
mated by persons who are acquainted with the shad fishery of 
this river, that by means of artificial propagation the number of 
shad taken in the river might be increased by one or more 
millions annually ; and as the fish are sold for about twenty 
cents each at the landing places, the value of such an increase 
would be very great. This improvement in the fishery cannot 
be made without joint legislation on the subject in this State 
and in Connecticut. Probably a general Act of incorporation 
which should give a fair proportion of the profits to all persons 
engaged in the fisheries, from the mouth of the river upwards, 
would be the most effectual encouragement that these fisheries 
could obtain from legislation. It would not be difficult to 
frame an Act which would be just to all persons interested, and 
which would enable them to maintain an establishment for the 
artificial increase of the fish at the expense of all in proportion 
to the value of their respective rights of fishing. 

It is also believed by many intelligent persons that the river 
might be again stocked with salmon by such a company. But 
legislation would be of no avail unless it were sought for by 
the proprietors of the fisheries, and concurred in by both 
States. 

One branch of the inquiries to which our duty has directed 
us, relates to the necessity of further legislation. In considering 
this subject, we could not fail to remark the contrast that exists 
between the policy of our own government and that of France. 
There the government extends its supervision of property and 
business to the most minute particulars, while here everything 
is left as far as possible to individual enterprise ; and our policy 
is to protect and promote industry with the least possible 
amount of legislation. And therefore, while the legislation of 
France, in respect to the fisheries, exhibits great learning and 
skill, it is not at all adapted to our circumstances. 

So far as trout streams are concerned, no legislation appears 
to us to be necessary. Each proprietor of land is also the pro- 
prietor of the fisheries upon it. The law protects him against 



12 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

trespassers and thieves, and so soon as it is understood that the 
owners of the fisheries consider them valuable and intend to 
exclude other persons from the use of them, their rights will 
undoubtedly be respected. We cannot recommend any addi- 
tion to our penal laws till it is called for and found to be 
necessary. 

In respect to extensive ponds, bordering on a great number of 
proprietors, and also in respect to large streams flowing through 
the lands of a great number of proprietors, and in which the 
passage of fish from one portion of the stream to another 
cannot be prevented, some legislation would doubtless be proper. 
It occurs to us that Acts incorporating the proprietors of fisheries, 
somewhat resembling the Acts incorporating the proprietors of 
general fields, may be suitable. These acts might confer ex- 
clusive rights of fishing upon the riparian proprietors, giving to 
all of them an opportunity to become members of the corpora- 
tion. If a part of the riparian proprietors decline to avail 
themselves of the privilege, they should not be permitted to 
prevent the use of the waters by the others. The laws which 
justify the flowing of lands for mills, and the taking of lands 
for aqueducts and other similar purposes, will justify such an 
appropriation of our fisheries. There is no other method of 
securing to those who engage in the labor of stocking our 
waters with fish the benefit to which they are entitled. 

But we do not think it proper that any general law should be 
passed on this subject. We are without experience to guide 
us, and probably it would be necessary that legislation should 
be adapted to each particular case, in order to secure the rights 
of all concerned. Whatever charters are granted should also 
be subject to modification, so that if errors are committed, they 
may be corrected. And no legislation can be of any avail until 
private enterprise shall ascertain its own wants. 

If the State shall be disposed to encourage this branch of 
industry while it is new, by means of legislative bounties, we 
would suggest that the agricultural societies of the several 
counties may be very suitable agencies to be intrusted with the 
business. 

In view of all the information that we have been able to 
obtain, we have arrived at the following conclusions, viz.: that the 
artificial propagation of fish is not only practicable but may be 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 13 

made very profitable, and that our fresh waters may thus be made 
to produce avast amount of excellent food ; that a small outlay 
of capital and a moderate degree of skill, aided by such infor- 
mation as can be derived from books that any man can procure, 
will enable the proprietors of our smaller streams and ponds to 
stock their own waters ; that in respect to the larger streams 
and ponds, a combination of individuals may be necessary, with 
special legislation adapted to each particular case, and guarding 
the rights of all persons interested in the waters, especially 
when they have been applied to mechanical purposes ; and that 
in all other respects, so far as the Commissioners can see, our 
laws afford to this branch of industry all the protection that can 
be necessary. If, indeed, any legislation were supposed to be 
necessary, it would be premature at present. Hasty and incon- 
siderate legislation is more likely to be mischievous than useful. 
All laws should be based upon practical knowledge ; and in our 
opinion there is too little practical knowledge on this subject in 
the Commonwealth to authorize any changes in our existing 
laws. 

There is a kindred subject in respect to which legislative 
inquiry may be useful, and the Commissioners are indebted 
to Prof. Agassiz for suggesting it. The suggestion is based on 
the fact that some kinds of fish are brought to market at sea- 
sons when they are unfit for use. Trout and salmon, for ex- 
ample, are sent to Boston market, from Maine and elsewhere, 
as mentioned in Capt. Atwood's report, at their spawning season 
in the autumn, when they ought to be left undisturbed, and 
when they are unfit for food. The same practice is said to 
exist in respect to some other species of fish. Such sales in 
market ought to be prohibited by penal laws ; but as a prelimi- 
nary step, a careful inquiry should be instituted into the facts 
by competent persons. The Commissioners have not considered 
such an inquiry as being within the range of their duties. 

R. A. CHAPMAN, 
HENRY WHEATLAND, 
N. E. ATWOOD, 

Commissioners. 



14 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 



€ommonu)caltl) of iltasaacljuoctte. 



To the Hon. R. A. Chapman, Chairman of the Commissioners. 

At the time of receiving the appointment of Commissioner for 
the Artificial Propagation of Fish, the season had so far advanced 
that nearly all the fresh water fish had deposited their spawn, 
with the exception of the trout and the allied species. Under 
these circumstances, it was deemed advisable that I should direct 
my inquiries to the trout, — respecting the habits, time of depos- 
iting the spawn, localities where found most plentiful, &c. From 
the best information which I could obtain, Barnstable county 
was selected as containing the best trout streams. 

On the 13th of September, (with the- advice, consent and 
approval of my colleagues in this commission,) I went to Sand- 
wich, and located there, for the purpose of observing the habits 
and experimenting on the artificial propagation of this fish. Ou 
the 15th of September I obtained four specimens — two males, 
two females — and found that the eggs were not mature ; care- 
fully observing the condition of those that were taken from that 
date, no mature eggs were noted until the 3d of November, 
when some were obtained and fecundated by artificial means. 
This was effected in the following manner. I took a zinc vessel 
and put into it about one pint of clear water ; then taking the 
female fish whose eggs were mature, holding her over the vessel 
and gently passing the hand over the abdomen, the eggs freely 
passed from the fish into the water I then took the male fish 
whose milt was mature, holding him over the vessel in the same 
manner, pressed the milt into the water containing the eggs ; 
the water was stirred gently with the hand so that every part of 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 15 

the egg came in contact with the milt ; after the lapse of two 
or three minutes, the water was poured off, and some fresh 
water added ; the eggs, by this means, were successfully fecun- 
dated. 

By careful observation, I have ascertained that the trout com- 
mence to deposit their spawn about the first of November, and 
as late as the middle of December I have found the females with 
spawn. I think that the spawning- season continues at least two 
months. I have observed in the Boston market, trout shipped 
from the State of Maine, in November, and their eggs were 
mature. At this season of the year this fish is exceedingly poor 
and lean, and consequently, as an article of food, it is considered 
of little value ; when in good condition, they are very excellent, 
and find a ready sale at high prices. The common salmon also 
finds a ready sale at very high prices in the spring and early 
summer ; at that time they are in excellent condition, and, like 
the trout, as the spawning season approaches, they become very 
poor, and remain so until long alter they have deposited their 
spawn ; during this time they are of little value as an article of 
food. In November last, some ten thousand pounds of salmon 
were shipped to the Boston market from the British Provinces, 
and sold at a low price. These were the first which I have ever 
noticed to be shipped to Boston at the time of spawning ; they 
were full of mature eggs. 

The trout, at the time of spawning, will not bite at the hook 
as well as at other times, but are taken with difficulty. Their 
habits, at this season, are to repair to the small brooks and 
streams where they can find a gravelly bottom, in order to 
deposit their spawn ; at that time I could obtain a few with 
nets, and in no other manner ; they were exceedingly scarce. 
I went to Plymouth, Barnstable, Marshpee, and the various 
streams and brooks in Sandwich to procure them, and finally, 
after much exertion, I succeeded in collecting some 15,000 
eggs. 

These, after having been fecundated by artificial means, were 
placed into small tanks or tubs, which had been partially filled 
with sand and gravel, and so arranged that a small continuous 
stream of water flowed in on one side, and passed over at the 
other, thus a constant gradual change of the water was pre- 
served. At the expiration of twelve days, some of the eggs 



16 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

were examined under the microscope, and it was perceived that 
the embryo had formed, and that the eggs were progressing 
hopefully. Soon after this time I noticed that some of the eggs 
began to rot; these were daily removed, as they were easily 
detected by becoming opaque— the healthy eggs being perfectly 
transparent. The rotting of the eggs continued to an alarming 
extent, so that at the expiration of fifty-five days only a few 
remained. The embryo had at that time become so far devel- 
oped as to be distinctly seen by the unaided eye. I thought 
that a few of them might be saved by being put into still water. 
I accordingly brought to Boston tbe few that remained, and 
with them a quantity of water into which they had been depos- 
ited, deeming it not advisable to change the water suddenly, 
but gradually to replace it with the Cochituate. I also tried 
the experiment of placing some of the eggs into all Cochituate 
water, and they soon died. 

The rotting, however, continued, and those that continued 
healthy appeared to be progressing hopefully until about the 
first of February ; after that time I could not see any further 
development of the embryo ; they had been deposited about 
ninety days, and the embryo seemed to be far advanced towards 
maturity. The cause of their final decay and loss must have 
been owing to the water not possessing the qualities their 
natures required. At Sandwich, where I made my experi- 
ments, there were two ponds, an upper and a lower pond, with 
springs running into the former ; between the two ponds was a 
dam, that prevented the fish from passing from one to the other. 
In the upper one I found trout apparently of all ages, both 
young and old ; but in the lower, below which I made my 
experiment, I found only a feAv trout, and they all had the 
appearance of extreme old age. In this pond I took five speci- 
mens, and they were females with mature eggs. I took the 
milt of males taken in other localities and put with the eggs, 
and fecundation did not appear to have taken place. I came to 
the conclusion that the trout in this (the lower) did not multi- 
ply, but that they were the fish that were in the pond when the 
dam was built. 

After I found that the eggs which I had collected were fast 
decaying, I then (when it was too late to apply a remedy, or to 
adopt a different course,) concluded that the water was not 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 17 

suitable for their development, and although a large quantity of 
water was flowing out of the pond where I was loeated, and 
from which I took the water, yet the bottom being covered with 
mud, which was constantly accumulating from year to year by 
the falling leaves, &c, might tend to render the water unsuita- 
ble for the development of the eggs of this fish. 

In conclusion, I must be permitted to express my sincere 
thanks to Prof. Agassiz and to Prof. Wyman, of Cambridge, for 
their kindness in imparting information and advice in respect to 
the most suitable manner of conducting my experiment. 

N. E. ATWOOD. 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 10 



HSCICULTURE. 



Fisheries have often been called the agriculture of the waters, 
as if seas, lakes, and rivers were inexhaustible store-houses of 
food, where, without fear of ever impoverishing them, man might 
continue to take and destroy forever, bounded only by his wants 
and his desires. This definition is false, because founded on a false 
view of the case. Fishery is not the agriculture of the waters ; 
it is only the harvesting. The waters are a source of produc- 
tion extremely powerful, but by no means infinite, and that the 
harvest may be always certain and abundant, it should be pre- 
pared by regular sowing, if it is true, according to the expression 
of M. de Quatrefages, that fish may be multiplied by sowing in 
the same manner as grain. 

This would appear unnecessary pains, if we were to consider 
only the very great fecundity o£ almost all the aquatic tribes. 
A perch of moderate size contains 28,320 eggs, and a herring 
36,960. 

Thomas Harmer * and C. F. Lund 2 have obtained by untiring- 
researches, still higher numbers from other species, e. g., 
80,388 and 272,160 for the pike ; 100,360 for the sole ; 71,820 
and 113,840 for the roach ; 137,800 for the bream ; 383,250 
for the tench ; 546,680 for the mackerel. A carp, weighing 
three kilogrammes Q66 pounds) contained, according to Petit, 
342,140 eggs. A flounder has given the enormous figure of 
1,357,400. There have been counted in a sturgeon as many 
as 7,635,200, and Leuvenhock has found 9,344,000 in a cod- 
fish. Finally, M. Valenciennes 3 has just calculated that there 

1 Philosophical Trans. Royal Society of London, Vol. Mi., p. 280. 17G8. 

2 Memoirs of the Swedish R. A. of Sciences, Vol. xxiii., German Ed., p. 192. 
1761. 

3 Valenciennes and Fremy. Researches on the Composition of Eggs in the 
Series of Animals. Academy of Sciences, March 20, 1854. 



20 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

are 9,000,000 in a turbot of fifty centimetres, (19|- inches,) and 
as many as 18,000,000 in a thick lipped mullet. 

If only the tenth part of the germs inclosed in the body of 
each fish arrived at maturity, there would be little to fear from 
the devastati6n of our coasts, or the depopulation of our fresh 
waters ; but numerous causes of destruction tend to reduce 
considerably the multiplication thus richly provided for. These 
arise partly from natural causes, but in great part also, from 
the act of man. We are to point them all out, if possible, and 
weigh them successively before discussing the means of pre- 
venting their action, which will form the chief object of this 
article. 

In the first place, we must not forget, that in the general 
harmony of nature, as Mr. Milne Edwards has justly remarked, 
the productiveness of animals is regulated with a view not only 
to the dangers to which the young are exposed before arriving 
at the age of reproduction themselves, but also to the uncer- 
tainty of fecundation of the eggs. It is well known that the 
immense majority of fishes are oviparous, and that the fecunda- 
tion is effected by the operation of the male element upon the 
female element separate from the body of the animals, and in 
the midst of the waters where they live. This action is the 
condition necessary to the development of the embryo, and all 
the eggs, which have not experienced the contact with the ani- 
malcules of the milt, change and soon decay. Now it is never 
the case that all the spawn receives this action, and from this 
cause alone a portion, more or less considerable, is always lost. 
The portion which remains is in turn exposed to a host of perni- 
cious influences. It may be left dry by a decline in the level of 
the water, or spoiled by the slimy substances which a rise of the 
waters always causes and carries with it. The spawn has also 
numerous enemies; many fish devour it, many Crustacea, many 
insects attack it in like manner ; it may be carriedo ff by sea-weed 
and byssus, and almost all aquatic birds are very fond of it. 

All these chances of mortality and destruction prevent the 
fish from increasing as fast as the great number of eggs would 
at first lead us to suppose, but they are still in a measure sub- 
ject to the laws of the animal creation, and would seldom suffice 
for the depopulation of the waters, unless supported by causes 
of another nature. Among these should be mentioned, first of 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 21 

all, the inadequacy of the legislation on the fisheries, and the 
violation with impunity of all the protecting ordinances which 
it has provided. 

At the end of the last century Duhamel pointed out the dep- 
redations of the 'fishermen, who cast their lines with impunity 
at all seasons of the year, and daily suffer numbers of fishes, 
too small to be sold, to perish upon the banks. He saw, with 
natural indignation, the inhabitants of the coasts fill baskets 
with the spawn to manure their land or feed their swine. This 
culpable improvidence has still further increased, and we can 
almost say that at the present fime all injuries are authorized, 
and all abuses are practiced, without limit. In vain the best 
grounded complaints are raised against the poachers upon 
fisheries ; the devastations have continued on all sides. 

The necessity has been felt, however, for a long time, of 
taking repressive measures against the destruction of spawn, 
and the historians of fishery have collected numerous ordi- 
nances, which have been successively issued with this view at 
different times and in different countries. Without citing them 
all, it will be sufficient to recall those which have had the great- 
est influence upon the legislation of the present time. In the 
year 966, Ethelred II., king of the Anglo Saxons, interdicted 
the sale of young fishes. Malcolm II., in 1030, fixed the time 
of the year when the salmon fishery should be permitted. Sev- 
eral other kings of Scotland have confirmed these decrees. 
Under Robert I., the willows of the bow-nets were to be separa- 
ted by at least two inches of interval, to leave a passage for the 
young fry. In 1400, Robert III. carried severity so far as to 
punish capitally every person convicted of having taken a 
salmon in the forbidden season. This cruel law was abolished 
by James I., but this prince kept up the interdict during the 
same season, and every infraction still remained the object of 
severe penalties. The kings of France were at great pains also 
to insure the free development of the young fishes. A great 
number of ordinances were issued by them, to determine the 
nature of the nets, of which the use should be permitted, and 
the length of the fishes which nii»nt be sold in the market 
places. At length, in 1669, Colbert placed upon a new footing 
the legislation of the coasts and rivers. He prohibited river 
fishing during the night and during the spawning season, under 



22 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

penalty of a fine of twenty livres and a month's imprisonment for 
the first offence, of a fine double in amount and two months' im- 
prisonment for the second, and of the pillory and the scourge for 
the third. The only exceptions were in the fisheries of salmon, 
shad, and lampreys. Colbert also prohibited the placing basket 
work at the end of the drag nets during the spawning season, 
under penalty of twenty livres fine, and after having deter- 
mined the kinds of snares to be forbidden, he directed that the 
fishermen should return to the streams the trouts, carps, bar- 
bels, breams and millers, which they should take having less 
than six inches between the eye and the tail, and the tenches, 
perches and mullets having less than five inches, under a pen- 
alty of one hundred livres fine. 

The legislation which governs us at present is based upon the 
previous dispositions ; unfortunately, it has disregarded the 
information offered by natural history, and thus but imperfectly 
attains the object proposed. The regulations relative to marine 
fishing, permit, for example, the taking of a given fish on shores 
where it has never been found, and give, for the limit of the 
Crustacea, indications contrary to the most simple common sense. 
The code of river fishing, which principally interests us here, is 
no better protected against criticism. The ordinance of Novem- 
ber 15, 1830, supplementary to that of April 15, 1829, leaves 
to the prefect of each department the care of determining, with 
the advice of the general council, and after having consulted 
the foresters, the times, seasons and hours when fishing shall be 
prohibited in the rivers and water-courses. Now how many 
times must the prefects, little skilled in natural science, or ill 
advised by those whose duty it is to enlighten them, have com- 
mitted errors like those of Colbert, when he interdicted trout 
fishing from the first of February to the middle of March, that 
is to say, at a time when they had nearly all already finished 
spawning ! The same ordinance prohibits certain specified nets 
and snares, thus intimating that all others are authorized, and 
permitting changes of form and name in the first, without ren- 
dering them less formidable or destructive. Article 80 of the 
fishery code punishes, with a fine of 20 to 50 francs, whoever 
shall catch, offer for sale, or sell fishes of less than the pre- 
scribed size, but it excepts from this provision sales of fish coming 
from ponds or reservoirs. It will at once be perceived how easy 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 23 

it is, through this exception, to catch and sell fish of all sizes. 
Article 24 forbids the placing of any gate, structure or fishing 
establishment whatever, calculated to prevent entirely the pas- 
sage of fish, but it tacitly authorizes dikes and mill dams, which 
produce the same effect. 

We will carry criticism no farther. It would be as easy 
for us to show that no efficacious measures insure the action of 
the fish police, and that the law is as badly executed as con- 
ceived. This state of things is deplorable, and has, without 
doubt, powerfully contributed to bring on the decay which has 
fallen upon the aquatic industry of France. 1 

Some figures, taken from the archives of the ministry of finance, 
will show clearly the importance of the evil. The water-courses 
of France have a total length of 197,255 kilometres (122,500 
miles.) Its lakes, reservoirs and fish ponds occupy a superficies 
of 220,000 hectares (900 square miles.) Now the rent of all 
the waters directed by the commissioners of forests, and those of 
dikes and bridges, yields to the State a revenue of 660,000 
francs. The former alone give fishing privileges in 7,570 kilo- 
metres (4,750 miles) of navigable and floating water-courses, 
producing the annual sum of 521,395 francs; that is an average 
of 69 francs to the kilometre. The insignificance of this sum 
is very striking, when compared with what it ought to be, or 
even with that still furnished by some rivers more favored than 
others. Thus the Doubs, in the Jura, is still let out at the rate 
of 159 francs the kilometre. The Moselle, in the department 
of La Meurthe, at the rate of 182 francs. For a similar length, 
the Loire brings in 252 francs in La Loire Inferieure, (depart- 
ment,) the Sarthe 297 francs in Le Mairie et Loire, and the 
Loiret 309. La Mayenne produces 339 francs, and the Seine 
498. As for the Mairie, it produces the exceptional sum of 

1 The evil has been further increased by the encroachments of manufacturing 
industry, as well as by the processes which they have involved. The mills 
throw otF into the water-courses their acids and salts, which have become use- 
less, and the bleachers do the same with their chlorides. The beds of streams 
have often to be laid dry to execute dragging and cleansing. Finally, steam- 
boats, by their violent movements of the water, raise and cast up the young 
fishes upon the river banks, and these are often retained and perish there. 
These last causes of destruction are still more fatal to the development of the 
fry than the culpable practices of the poachers. 



24 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

1,378 francs. By the side of these figures, more or less satis- 
factory, many others attest, on the contrary, the extreme scarcity 
of fish. The Ain, in the Jura, produces only 14 francs to the 
kilometre ; the Dordogne, in the department of La Correze, 10 
francs, the Isere 8 francs, the Drome 4, and the Durance 2. 
Finally, 219 kilometres have been depopulated to that point, 
that they cannot be let at any price. 

This marked inequality in the revenues of several rivers, 
which offer in general similar conditions to the fish, or whose 
different conditions can be differently improved, seems to indi- 
cate that the evil, even where greatest, is not irreparable. The 
proprietors, injured by the impoverishment of the fisheries, and 
the government itself, more interested than any body in the 
products of the rivers, have yet remained a long time inactive 
under the laws which they are sustaining. The remedy has 
been decided upon only after the reiterated solicitations of natu- 
ralists, who, long since masters of a process of artificial multi- 
plication, have felt that it might be usefully applied to the 
repopulating of rivers and ponds. The first experiments have 
given results sufficiently remarkable not to discourage farther 
attempts. The practical methods have been promptly developed, 
and scientific researches, skilfully conducted, have impressed a 
new character upon pisciculture — that is, the branch of rural 
economy which is occupied with the improvement of waters. 
A very general interest is now felt in this important question of 
the artificial multiplication of fish, which belongs at once to the 
natural sciences, to agriculture and to political economy. The 
result of the experiments which, since the end of the last cen- 
tury, have had for their object the re-stocking of rivers, already 
forms a curious chapter of zoological history, and while await- 
ing its increase by some new pages, it appears to us desirable 
to reunite its scattered elements. 



The first attempts at pisciculture were made by the Chinese 
and the ancient Romans, aifd it is probable that they were pre- 
ceded by their elders in civilization. We have no positive data 
as to the epoch in which the Chinese commenced these experi- 
ments ; but every thing tends to show that they reach back to 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 25 

the most remote antiquity. We find in the " Histoire Generate 
des Voyages " (1748) in Grosier, in Davis, as M. Chevreul has 
already pointed out, and in most of the works which treat of 
Chinese customs, some curious details on the transport of the 
spawn of fish. According to the missionaries who have visited 
China, a multitude of salmon, trout, and sturgeons mount into 
the rivers of Kiang-si and into the ditches which are dug in the 
middle of the fields to preserve the water necessary to the pro- 
duction of rice. They deposit their eggs there, and the young, 
which are soon hatched, are a source of considerable profit to the 
riparian proprietors. The Jesuit father, John Baptiste Duhalde, 
is the first French author who has shown x the manner in which 
this traffic is effected. We give his account, which most histo- 
rians have copied with alterations : " In the great river 
Yang-tse-kiang, not far from the city Kieon-king-fou, in the 
province of Kiang-si, at certain times of the year, are assembled 
a prodigious number of boats for the purchase there of the 
eggs of fish. Towards the month of May, the country people 
bar the river in various places with mats and hurdles, for a 
length of about nine or ten leagues, leaving only sufficient space 
for the passage of the boats ; the eggs of the fish are stopped by 
these hurdles. They can distinguish them by the eye, where 
other persons see nothing in the water ; they draw out this 
water mixed with eggs, and fill several vases with it for sale, 
which causes, at this season, numbers of merchants to come 
with their boats to buy it, and transport it into different pro- 
vinces, taking care to agitate it from time to time. They 
succeed one another in this operation. The water is sold in 
measures to all those who have fish preserves and domestic 
ponds. After some days there are seen in the impregnated 
water, as it were, little heaps of fishes' eggs, without its being 
yet possible to distinguish the species. It is only with time that 
this appears. The profit is often a hundred fold more than the 
outlay, as the people live in great part upon fish." To these 
very simple, but successful means of replenishing their ponds, 
the Chinese are said to have joined others which travellers have 
only very imperfectly indicated ; they assert that when the 
young fish begins to eat, they give him marsh lentils mixed with 
yellow of eggs. 

1 History of the Chinese Empire, Vol. i., p. 35. 1735. 
4 



26 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

The Romans had nearly similar customs, at a very early 
epoch. " The descendants of Romulus and Remus," says 
Columella, 1 " rustics as they were, had much at heart the pro- 
curing upon their farms a sort of abundance in every thing like 
that which reigns among the inhabitants of the city ; thus they 
were not satisfied with stocking with fish the ponds which they 
had constructed for this purpose, but carried their foresight to 
the point of filling lakes formed by nature with the spawn of 
fish which they threw into them. In this way the lakes Velinus 
and Sabatinus, as well as the Vulsmensis and Ciminus, have, 
in the end, abundantly furnished, not only cat-fish and gold-fish, 
but, moreover, all other sorts of fish which are able to live in 
freshwater." These practices were early abandoned, and it is a 
matter of surprise, when we consider the strange infatuation of 
which fish became the object in ancient Italy during the follow- 
ing centuries, that no measures were then taken to insure their 
reproduction and free development. It is well known that the 
ancients had a remarkable predilection for this species of food. 
The principal luxury of the Roman banquets consisted of fish, 
and the poets speak of sumptuous tables spread with these ex- 
clusively. In the period between the taking of Carthage and 
the reign of Vespasian, this taste became a perfect passion, and 
for its gratification the senators and patricians, enriched by the 
spoils of Asia and Africa, incurred the most foolish expense. 
Thus Licinius Murena, Quintus Hortensius, Lucius Philippus, 
constructed immense basins, which they filled with the most 
rare species, and Lucullus, like a new Xerxes, caused a moun- 
tain to be pierced to introduce sea water into his fish ponds. 
Varro 2 relates that Hindus received twelve millions of sesterces 
($675,000) from the numerous buildings which he possessed, 
and that he employed the entire sum in the care of his fishes. 
The rich patricians, says the same author, were not satisfied 
with a single pond ; their fish preserves were divided into com- 
partments where they kept shut up, apart from each other, 
fishes of different kinds ; they retained a great number of fish- 
ermen solely to take care of these animals. They tended their 
fish as carefully as their own slaves during sickness. It is even 

1 De Re Rustica, Book viii., Section 16. 
1 De Re Rustica, Book viii., Section 17. 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 27 

added that a naval expedition, commanded by an admiral, had 
for its object to introduce upon the coast of Tuscany a sort of 
scar peculiar to the waters of Greece. 1 

This extravagant fashion, which spread through the various 
classes of society, and brought on the ruin of entire families, 
had also the effect of impoverishing the coasts of the Medite- 
ranean. Ismeral complained that time was no longer given to 
the fish of the Tyrrhenian sea to come to maturity. The scanda- 
lous luxury displayed in fish preserves, and the unwearied'atten- 
tion then directed to marine animals, have furnished no other 
result useful to pisciculture. The only fact worthy of remark 
at this epoch of sterile extravagance, is the introduction of gold- 
fish into artificial ponds, where shell fish were also placed for 
their nourishment. 

We maj r pass rapidly over the immense interval which sepa- 
rates the Roman Empire from the eighteenth century, without 
remarking any important progress in the husbandry of the 
waters. The fisherman's art was, however, extended and per- 
fected during the middle ages, and fish preserves became ex- 
tremely numerous in France and Italy. Kings and princes all 
had artificial ponds in their domains, and we behold Charlemagne 
himself taking great pains to keep his own in repair, causing 
new ones to be dug, and giving orders that the fish produced 
should be sold. The religious communities exacted enormous 
duties upon almost all fisheries, and had considerable preserves 
in which multitudes of fish grew fat. The maintenance of 
these preserves required many precautions, and the restorer of 
agriculture in the thirteenth century, (Peter of Crescenza,) 
pointed out the manner of getting the greatest result from the 
lakes of fresh, as well as salt water. There appears in his 
work, however, no method worthy of being noticed here, and 
the treatise does not appear to us to have rendered any more 
service to pisciculture than that of Florentinus, in the third 
century, at least as far as we can judge of the latter by the 
extracts which Cassianus Bassus has preserved for us. It 
appears, nevertheless, that towards the end of the middle ages 
new methods were sought for which might serve to increase the 

1 For further details, see Noel de la Morimiere History of Fishes, Vol. i., 
1815; Cuvier and Valenciennes Natural History of Fishes, Vol. i., 1828, and 
Dureau de la Malle, Political Economy of the Romans, Vol. ii., 1840. 



28 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

production of fish ; a monk of the abbey of Reome, near Montbara, 
named Pom Pinchon, conceived the idea of artificially fecundating 
the eggs of trout, by pressing out in turn the products of a male 
and female of this species into water, which he afterwards agi- 
tated with his finger. After this operation, he placed the eggs 
in a wooden box, having a layer of fine sand on the bottom, and 
a willow grating above and at the two ends. The apparatus re- 
mained plunged, up to the moment of hatching, in water flowing 
with a gentle stream. This process is described in a manuscript 
dated 1420, and belonging to the Baron of Montgandry, grand 
nephew of our celebrated Bufibn. It has never been piiblished, 
and had remained secret till a recent time. 1 Pom Pinchon is 
then, in all probability, the first inventor of artificial fecunda- 
tion, but his experiments must be looked upon as not having 
occurred, since they were not made public. They have of course 
had no influence on the progress of pisciculture, and are only 
interesting in a historical point of view. 

The fishery of Commachio, on the Adriatic, of which the 
origin is probably very ancient, presents some natural features, 
which may, perhaps, be imitated with advantage on other parts 
of the Mediterranean shore. Already described at length by 
Bonaveri, then by Spallanzani, this lagoon still merits that we 
should say some words with regard to it. It is, perhaps, one 
hundred and thirty miles in circumference, according to Spal- 
lanzani, and is divided into forty basins surrounded with dikes, 
and all in communication with the sea. Eels abound there to 
such an extent, that the inhabitants sell them through all Italy. 
During the months of February, March and April, they leave 
the gates open and all the passages free ; the young eels enter 
of their own accord, and the more abundantly in proportion as 
the weather is stormy. This they call the " mounting.'''' Once 
in the basins, the fishes find nourishment so abundant and so 
well suited to their wants, that they do not attempt to leave 
until full grown, that is, after about five or six years. The eels 
emigrate and are taken in the greatest number during the 
months of October, November and December. For this pur- 

1 M. De Montgandry explained the hatching box of Dom Pinchon at one 
of the last sessions of the Zoological Society of Acclimation, and was kind 
enoneh to inform us also of the manner in which the monk of Reome effected 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 29 

pose, the fishermen open at the bottom of the basins little pas- 
sages bordered with reeds, which the eels follow from choice, 
and are conducted into a sort of narrow chamber, where they 
accumulate without being able to get out. On the average, the 
crop amounts annually to a million of kilogrammes, (2,201,737 
pounds,) and M. Corte informs us that it produces, according to 
the estimate of M. Cuppari, a net revenue of 80,000 Roman 
crowns, that is, about $88,000. 

The fishers of Commachio profit, as we see, by the advantages 
which nature offers, and they have but few precautions to take 
to insure the development of the fish in this great preserve. 
The less favorable circumstances in which the fisheries of the 
Swedish lakes were carried on, induced an investigation, towards 
the middle of the last century, of the means of preventing the 
considerable loss which the spawn had there to undergo. 
Already great care was taken in that country not to trouble the 
fish at the times of their reproduction, so that it was even forbid- 
den to ring the bells during the spawning season of the bream. 
A counsellor of Linkoeping, Charles Frederic Lund, 1 remarked 
that the three species most esteemed among those which inhabit 
the lakes of that country, the bream, the perch and the mullet, 
attach their eggs near the banks, either to the rocks, or, by 
preference, to the twigs of pine and to the willow cages placed 
in the water to catch them. The eggs are thus destroyed by 
the fishermen, or devoured by insects, birds, and especially the 
fishes of prey, so that hardly one out of ten finally escapes. He 
well understood that the prohibition of fishing during the spawn- 
ing season would very imperfectly prevent this enormous destruc- 
tion. He devised another means of protecting the multiplica- 
tion of the fish, which accords completely, as he himself remarks, 
with the habits of these animals, the mode and the laws of their 
reproduction, as well as with the rules of logic and of our own 
duty. He caused large wooden boxes to be made without 
covers, but pierced with little holes, and furnished with rollers, 
to allow of their descending easily into the water. He placed 
twigs of pine in them, and introduced a certain quantity of 
males and females, taken at the time of spawning, taking care 

1 Of the Planting of Fishes in Inland Lakes. Memoirs of the Swedish 
Academy of Sciences, Vol. 23, 1761. German Translation of Kartner, p. 181. 



30 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

to separate them by their kinds and to give them space enough. 
After having left them there two or three days, — that is, during 
the time necessary for laying the eggs, he drew out all the fishes 
with the help of a small net, and arranged the boughs so as not 
to press too much against one another. The eggs arrived at 
maturity after a fortnight, or a little more, according to the 
degree of heat, and a multitude of young fishes came forth. 
This simple process included all the conditions necessary to suc- 
cess, and doubtless great advantages may be found in it for the 
propagation of fishes whose eggs are adherent. Lund succeeded 
in transporting from one lake to another, boughs covered with 
spawn, which he placed in a vase of water, taking care merely 
not to expose them to contact with the air. In making a first 
application of his process, he had put separately into three large 
boxes, with a small number of males, fifty female breams, which 
gave him 3,100,000 of the fry ; one hundred perch of the large 
species produced 3,215,000 of the fry, and one hundred mul- 
lets gave 4,000,000 of little ones. He obtained then in this 
manner more than ten millions of young fishes, which were 
dispersed in the Lake of Raexen. If this process had been 
employed on a large scale in all the lakes of Sweden, there 
would have resulted, says he, a real blessing for the country. 

The favorable circumstances of the arrangement adopted by 
Lund enabled him to observe some particulars of the develop- 
ment of the embryo. A German naturalist, Bloch, 1 advanced 
somewhat farther in this direction by employing a similar 
means. He took from the Spree some aquatic plants covered 
with eggs of perch, bream, rotengle, &c, and kept them in a 
wooden box of fresh water, renewed daily. At the end of a 
week he obtained many thousands of little fish ; observing, 
however, that only a small part of the eggs were fecundated, 
and that those which were so remained transparent and yellow, 
while those which failed, become daily more disturbed and 
opaque. Bloch concluded that by transporting spawn upon 
plants, as he had done, lakes and ponds might be easily and 
cheaply stocked with fish ; but he made no experiment, and as 
we see, only imperfectly imitated Lund. 



1 Marc Eliezer Bloch. General and particular Ichthyology, Part ii., p. 94. 
1795. 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 31 

"While the ingenious predecessor of Bloch was seeking the 
means of increasing the inhabitants of the Swedish lakes, a 
lieutenant of militia of Lippe Detraold, in Westphalia, J. L. 
Jacobi, conceived the idea of artificially fecundating the eggs 
of fish and of applying this process to the repopulating of ponds 
and rivers. The curious results of his experiments were indeed 
embodied in a letter which the Magazine of Hanover only 
published in 1763 f but as early as 1858 Jacobi had addressed 
manuscript notes upon the subject to the illustrious Buffon, 
which Lacdpede has mentioned in the first volume of his Nat- 
ural History of Fishes, and in the course of the same year he 
had intrusted another account of his labors to the Count de 
Goldstein, grand chancellor of Berg and Juliers. Goldstein 
caused a Latin translation of it to be made, which he sent 
M. de Fourcroy, director of fortifications at Corsica, and an 
ancestor of the celebrated chemist. This version was published 
for the first time in French in 1773, in Vol. iii. of the General 
History of the Fisheries by Duhamel-Dumonccau. Duhamel 
does not mention Jacobi, but the facts in both memoirs being 
perfectly identical and set forth in similar terms, it is impossi- 
ble not to perceive that both writings emanate from the same 
author. The date of the first communication entirely secures 
the claims of Jacobi, which are besides confirmed by the quo- 
tations of Lacepdde, and by a communication made in 1761 by 
Gleditsch, to the academy of sciences at Berlin. We give the 
details, because the name of Goldstein alone having been 
printed in the History of the Fisheries, many naturalists have 
wrongly attributed to him the merit of the discovery of arti- 
ficial fecundations. 

The experiments of Jacobi were upon the two most esteemed 
species of fish, the trout and the salmon. He tells us himself 
that, before arriving at good results, he had to employ sixteen 
years in preparatory researches and incomplete experiments. 
He remarked, in the first place, that from the end of November 
to the beginning of February the trout come together in the 
brooks and fix themselves upon the gravel, where they rub their 

1 It is to be found also, in extenso, in Win. Yarrell, History of British Fishes, 
Vol. ii., p. 87, 1811, and at the end of Practical Instructions upon Pisciculture, 
by M. Coste, 1853. 



32 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

bellies in a way which leaves large tracks. The females then 
deposit their eggs, upon which the males drop their milt. He 
caused some trout, then, to be taken at this season, when ready 
to spawn ; taking by turns a female and a male, he pressed 
their abdomen lightly over a vase half filled with water, and 
let fall into it the mature products of both sexes, and then 
stirred up the whole with his hand, in order to render the mix- 
ture more complete, and thus to insure the fecundation of all 
the eggs. These eggs being once fecundated, it was necessary to 
combine the circumstances proper for their development, and 
for this purpose Jacobi thought of placing them in a grated 
box, across a little brook of running water. He constructed a 
large chest, at one extremity of which, and on the upper sur- 
face, he left a square opening, barred by a metallic grating of 
. which the threads were separated by a space of only about four 
lines ; this opening served to let in the water. Another, grated 
in like manner, and placed in the vertical face of the other 
extremity, allowed it to flow out. The bottom was overlaid with 
an inch of sand or gravel. Jacobi placed this apparatus in a 
trench prepared for it by the side of a brook, or, better still, a 
pond fed by good springs, from which he could cause, by a 
canal, an uninterrupted stream of water to flow through the box. 
These dispositions, very simple and* judiciously combined, 
completely resolved the problem which he had proposed to him- 
self, viz. : To protect the fecundated eggs against their natural 
enemies and yet to leave them in circumstances similar to those 
in which they would naturally have been placed. The experi- 
ment succeeded. After about three weeks, Jacobi saw appearing 
through the thick envelope of the egg two black points corres- 
ponding to the eyes of the animal, and eight days later he began 
to distinguish the body itself which moved and turned in the 
interior. Finally, after five weeks, the young fishes broke from 
their shells, and soon separated themselves completely from it, 
retaining only, under their bellies, a hanging yellow pouch, 
which is the umbilical vesicule. During nearly a month 
the young were nourished by the substance of this pouch, 
which disappears as they increase in size ; but then they had 
need of other nourishment, and to obtain it, they left the box 
by passing through the grating, and fell into a reservoir filled 
with sand and fitted to receive them. Jacobi adds, that in a 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 33 

basin of sufficient size, they grew wonderfully in the space of 
six months, and that then they had arrived at a suitable growth 
for stocking the ponds ; but he does not say in what way he 
nourished thern during all this time. 

The inventor of artificial fecundation appears to have often 
repeated the experiments which he describes, and took great 
pains to insure the success of them. He perceived that the 
eggs are easily spoiled when they get into heaps, and recom- 
mends, to avoid this danger, the separating them frequently by 
means of a switch. Care should be taken also, that they do 
not stick together, when the milt is poured over them. Finally, 
the dirt which the water deposits should, from time to time, be 
carefully removed from them, and this may be readily done 
with the feather of a quill. 

The question now is, Whether Jacobi, by neglecting no pre-, 
cautions, and guarding himself against the various chances of 
failure, did arrive at a final result which is completely satisfac- 
tory in a practical point of view ? Did he succeed, by means 
of his process, in advantageously restocking water-courses 
which had become unproductive, or increasing production, to 
any extent, in those where fish were already abundant ? We 
have not the requisite documents for answering this question 
positively ; but we can'scarcely doubt that he obtained at least 
partial results, since England recompensed his services with 
a pension, and in a little state of Germany, his operations have 
been continued with success by M. Schmittger. 1 

Physiology soon turned to account the discovery of Jacobi, 
and artificial fecundations have since been frequently repro- 
duced in laboratories. There is no need of recalling the results 
which Spallanzani, Prevost of Geneva and Dumas, have drawn 
from them. They have been also a great help to embryological 
studies, and by employing this means two contemporaneous 
zoologists, Ruscon'f and C. Vogt, have been able to follow all 
the phases of development of the tench and the palie ; but this 
discovery especially marked a great progress in pisciculture, 
and while science availed itself skilfully of this new mode of 

1 This fact is proved by a letter of Dr. Schutt, of Frankfort, recently writ- 
ten to Mr. Milne Edwai'ds. The experiments of M. Schmittger have been 
made in the principality of Lippe Detmold. 



34 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

investigation, the practical results obtained by Jacobi were 
carried out in Germany and Scotland. 

In the Treatise on the Economy of Ponds (by Ernst Fried- 
rick Hurtig, p. 411, 1831,) there is given a description of the 
process of Jacobi, with the remark that this method has been 
successfully employed by the forester, Franke at Steinburg, in 
the principality of Lippe Schaumburg, as well as by M. de Kaas, 
at Buckeburg. The same facts are confirmed by M. Knoche, 1 
who asserts that he has himself also completely succeeded upon 
the estate called Oelbergen. The last writer placed the young 
fish at first in a little reservoir, and the following year trans- 
ported them into a larger basin. " I have obtained by this pro- 
cess," says he, " in the eight years that I have been employed, 
800 young fishes out of 1,000 to 1,200 eggs. After a year I 
found in the smaller pond only about half the fish, the others hav- 
ing either died or escaped. Apart from this loss they succeed- 
ed very well, and I have obtained in three years, out of the 
fish, in this manner, a crop of three to four hundred trouts a 
year, of three to four years of age, and of which the largest 
weighed three-quarters of a pound." M. Vogt, in a letter re- 
cently published, which reproduces this passage of M. Knoche, 
informs us at the same time that a decree of the government 
of Neufchatel, issued in 1842, gave complete instructions to the 
fishermen as to the method of artificially fecundating the eggs 
of fish. 

Some experiments have also been made in England and Scot- 
land. After having studied during several years the manner in 
which the salmon spawn naturally, Mr. John Shaw z attempted 
to combine the conditions, which appeared to him most essen- 
tial, in some preserves which he caused to be made near the 
river Nith. These reservoirs were only two feet in depth, and 
spread with a thick bed of gravel. They were fed directly by 
the water of a spring which abounded with the larvae of in- 
sects. A close grating was placed before the conduits, by which 
the surplus of this water had to flow out to gain the river. 
These dispositions once made, Mr. Shaw fecundated the eggs 
just below the point where the water fell into his basins and left 

1 Journal of the Agricultural Union of the Grand Duchy of Hesse, No, 37, 
j>. 407. 1840. 

2 Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburg, Vol. xiv., p. 547. 1840. 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 35 

them to develop at the same spot. This plan succeeded, and 
he was able to bring up a certain number of young salmon 
during two years, and even more. He took advantage of them 
to make observations upon their growth and change of color. 
At the age of six months the young salmon had a length of two 
inches ; of a year, three inches and three-quarters ; of sixteen 
months, six inches, and of two years, six inches and a half. 
At this last period, when they had put on the livery of emigra- 
tion, and when they are called in Great Britain by the name of 
parr, the milt of the males had arrived at a sufficient state of 
maturity to be able to fecundate the eggs of adult females. 
We owe also to M. Shaw, as well as to Mr. Andrew Young * and 
Dr. Knox, our increased knowledge of various particulars rela- 
tive to the monogamy of salmons, and to the manoeuvres which 
the female performs on the spawning place, but these researches 
do not appear to have had any practical result worthy of 
attention. 

An engineer of Hammersmith, named Gotlieb Boccius, pub- 
lished in 1848 a short treatise on the management of fish in 
rivers and streams. He extols in it the method of artificial 
fecundation, but without producing any positive fact to prove 
that he himself experimented with success. Since that time he 
has assured Mr. Milne Edwards that he had operated in 1841 
upon the water-courses belonging to Mr. Drumniond, near 
"Oxbridge, then upon the estate of the duke of Devonshire at 
Chatsworth, upon that of Mr. Gurnie at Carsalton and that of 
Mr. Hibberts at Chalfort. Mr. Boccius must have raised 
already about two millions of little trout. 

The discovery of Jacobi had passed successfully, as we have 
seen, the trial and application in England as in Germany. Up 
to 1848, nevertheless, France had remained very much behind 
in experiments of this sort. Although she, perhaps more than 
any other country, had need of effectual means for remedying 
the impoverishment of the waters, the French economists had 
given scarcely any attention to this question. A single one, the 
baron of Rividre, presented, in 1840, to the Central Society of 
Agriculture, some very learned and sensible reflections upon 
ichthyology regarded in its relations to the wants of man, and 

1 Natural History of the Salmon. Wick. 1S48. 



36 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

the profits of agriculture. 1 He insisted especially on the advan- 
tages which would result from taking in the spring the bouirons 
or little eels which abound at the mouths of rivers, and dispers- 
ing them in the lakes, ponds, pools, and even muddy ditches, 
where they live very well. He satisfied himself that they might 
be transported alive in casks full of water, without appearing 
to suffer much from it ; hut wherever it should be possible to use 
rivers or canals, he thought it better to make use of boats 
pierced with holes in communication with the water, such as 
are frequently used for keeping fish. In this memoir of M. de 
Riviere, the word Pisciculture is used for the first time ; he 
employs it with hesitation to indicate this new branch of rural 
economy, which, says he, is still to be created. 

II. 

The year 1848 saw a new era commence in France for the 
economy of the waters. We believe it is just to say, that if 
the application of artificial fecundation to the repopulating of 
rivers is owing to a German naturalist, it is in our country 
that pisciculture has grown, has been perfected, and has finally 
come to constitute an actual branch of industry. All the pro- 
gress which has been made within six years in this department 
of the science, is the work of French inquirers. 

The first, M. de Quatrefages, 2 was led by purely scientific 
researches to occupy himself with the multiplication of fish. 
This zoologist, convinced that artificial fecundation would do 
away with the various causes which prevent the development of 
the eggs, advised the employment of the hatching box of Gold- 
stein (or rather of Jacobi) for fish of running water. For those 
of ponds or lakes he recommended depositing the fecundated 
eggs on a layer of aquatic plants in a spot where the water 
should be tranquil and shallow, and protecting them by lattice 
work against the attacks of their enemies. He showed how 
the employment of the process discovered by Jacobi would 
facilitate the domesticating of foreign fish in our waters. 
Finally, he pointed out the possibility of rendering annual the 

1 Memoirs of the Central Society of Agriculture, Vol. xlviii., p. 171. 1840. 

2 Comptes rendues of the Academy of Sciences, Vol. xxvii., p. 413. 1848. 
See also the Revue des Deux Mondes. Jan. 1, 1849. 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 37 

triennial and irregular product of the ponds by dividing them 
into three or four unequal compartments. In the smallest the 
eggs might be hatched and the fry raised. Each year the fish 
might be driven from one compartment to another, and the last 
basin might be fished every year. 

The memoir of M. de Quatrefages made a good deal of noise, 
because it met one of the wants of rural economy, and gave a 
glimpse of a quite new prosperity for the industry of ponds and 
water-courses. Drawing from oblivion the results obtained in 
Germany during the last century, it recalled the attention of 
naturalists and husbandmen to a question too long neglected, 
and of which it would be now superfluous to dwell upon the 
importance. The author was, doubtless, far from thinking that 
the conclusions to which he had brought his studies would be 
almost immediately justified and confirmed by the experiments 
undertaken some years before, but which had not yet been made 
public. However, in the first days of March, 1819, the Acade- 
my of Sciences learned by a letter of Dr. Haxo, 1 Secretary of 
the Society of Emulation of the Vosges, that this society had, in 
the year 1814, given a premium to two fishermen of La Bresse, 
M. M. Remy and Gehin, for having fecundated and artificially 
hatched some eggs of trout. M. Haxo added that Re"my and 
Gehin then possessed a piece of water containing five or six 
thousand trout, of one to three years old, all raised by this 
process. It is impossible not to admire the sagacity and perse- 
verance of these fishermen, who, quite unlettered and ignorant 
of the progress of the natural sciences, have found the means of 
themselves, of remedying the decay of their industry, and of 
giving it a new impetus. Not only have they repeated, with great 
pains, the observations and experiments which occupied Jacobi's 
whole life, but they have gone much farther in the practical 
application, and have almost entirely resolved the problem. 

Although they have both greatly contributed to the success 
of the undertaking, we now know that the first efforts were 
solely owing to Joseph Remy, and that he associated Antoine 
Gehin with himself only after having already half succeeded. 
Remy first studied the habits of the female t routs ready to 
spawn. He saw them remove the gravel with their tails, and 

1 Comptes Rendus of the Academy of Sciences, Vol. xxviii., p. 351. 1849. 



38 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OP FISH. [May, 

rub their bellies to assist the laying of the eggs. Having caught 
many of them in this state, he perceived that by pressing them 
a little with his hand, he could easily force out the mature eggs, 
and that the same thing occurred with the milt of the males. He 
next suspended a female above a vase full of water, and by means 
of a light pressure applied from above downwards, he caused 
the eggs to fall out, upon which he afterwards poured, in like man- 
ner, the fecundating liquid of the male until the water was 
white. Next depositing the eggs in a tin box pierced with numer- 
ous holes, and spread with a layer of coarse sand, he placed the 
box in a fountain of pure water, or in the bed of a brook ; after a 
certain time he saw the younghatched, and freeing their tails first. 
These facts, which Remy relates himself in a letter addressed 
in 1843, to the Prefect of the Yosges, are, as we see, almost 
identical with those which Jacobi has embodied in his memoir, 
as these last were with the experiments of Don Pinchon ; but 
the two fishermen of La Bresse did not stop there. 1 It was not 
enough to have guarded the eggs against the chances of destruc- 
tion, which menace them when abandoned to themselves. It 
was necessary also to insure the development of the young, and 
to find for them a nourishment suited to the wants of their age. 
This, Remy and Gehin succeeded in doing. After two or three 
weeks of a diet adapted to these wants, they opened the boxes 
which contained the fry, and allowed them to run freely into a 
water chamber or a portion of the stream prepared to receive 
them. There they had taken care before-hand to raise a great 
number of frogs, of which the spawn is eagerly devoured by the 
young trout. Somewhat later, they had recourse to the method 
already employed for the support, in preserves, of adult carniv- 
orous fishes. 2 

1 Haxo d'Espinal on the Artificial Fecundating and Hatching of the Eggs of 
Fish, 2d edition, p. 22, 1853, and Guide of the Pisciculturist, 1854. 

2 " To nourish their young trout," says M. de Quatrefages, " they hatched 
with them, other smaller species of fish, smaller and herbivorous. These are 
raised and nourished upon aquatic vegetables. In their turn they serve for 
food to the trout, who are nourished by flesh. These fishermen have thus suc- 
ceeded in applying to their industry, one of the most general laws, upon which 
are based the natural harmonies of the animal creation." In view of the 
necessity of their carnivorous diet, it is important to put together only trout of 
the same age, otherwise the smaller become the food of the large ; and even 
with this precaution, it is not always possible to avoid the fatal effects of their 
voracity. 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 39 

R£my and Geliin first stocked two ponds nfftr La Bresse, 
several brooks of their canton, the water-courses of the com- 
mune of Waldenstein, and have thrown about fifty thousand 
young trout into the Moselotte, one of the affluents of the 
Moselle. These results were too important, and promised too 
great advantages in the economy of our waters, not to draw the 
attention of the public, and even of the government. In 1850, 
M. Milne Edwards was officially charged by the minister of agri- 
culture, to make sure of the accuracy of the facts published, and 
to ascertain their value. After having procured some informa- 
tion in England, as to similar experiments, he went into the 
Vosges, and visited the little establishment of the fishers of La 
Bresse. In a very remarkable report, 1 he gave an account of 
the interesting labors of Re'my and G£hin, and, while pointing 
out that the discovery of artificial fecundation dated back into 
the last century, he proclaimed that the fishermen of La Bresse 
were the first to make application of it among us, and that they 
have the merit of having thus created a new branch of industry 
in France. The learned Dean of the Faculty of Sciences of Paris 
resolved upon a grand experiment of stocking the waters of 
France with fish, and regarded the success of it as probable, if 
the processes were judiciously arranged. It appeared to him 
that the best recompense which the government could make to 
the fishermen of La Bresse, would be to give them the direction 
of the enterprise. The Philomatic Society did not hesitate to 
put forth a similar wish by the organ of M. de Quatrefages. 

The first notice of M. de Quatrefages, the promulgation of 
the success obtained at La Bresse, and the favorable report of 
M. Milne Edwards, gave a powerful impulse to pisciculture, and 
induced varied applications of it on all sides. Under the influ- 
ence of these first labors, commenced, in many parts of France, 
the grand trial which is now going on. Its value will not be 
fully known till it is completed ; but it is already sufficiently 
advanced to permit us to hope that in the majority of cases the 
method of artificial fecundation will produce important results. 
A certain number, both of eminent men of learning, and of 
men of practical skill, have taken part in this movement, which, 

1 Annals of the Natural Science*. Third Scries, Vol. xiv., p. 53. 1850. 

2 Journal of Practical Agriculture, of June 5, 1852. 



40 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

far from slackening, increases on the contrary, and is extending 
daily more and more. Among those who have contributed 
most by their writings or their practical studies to the continually 
increasing progress of pisciculture, besides Remy and Gehin, 
besides M. Milne Edwards and M. de Quatrefages, we must 
mention M. Valenciennes, whose knowledge of ichthyology is so 
extensive and profound, M. Millet, inspector of waters and 
forests ; M. Coste, professor hi the College of France ; Messrs. 
Berthol & Detzem, engineers of bridges and causeways ; Mr. 
Paul Gervais, 1 at Montpellier, Mr. J. Fonmet, 2 at Lyons, Mr. 
F. Defilippi, 3 at Turin. 

M. A^alcncienncs 4 has, at least in part, realized the hope which 
has often been indulged, of transporting and domesticating in 
the waters of France the most esteemed fish of foreign countries. 
He has succeeded in bringing alive from the Spree to the reser- 
voirs of Marly, live different kinds, each represented by a certain 
number of individuals. There are the sander, Qperca Iitcioperca, 
of Linne,~) the wels or silure, (jsilurus giants, of Linne,') the 
alandt, (cyprinns jeses, of Block,) the German lolle, (g-radus 
lotta,of Block,} and the pitzker (cobites fossilis, of Linne.) 
This trial has only been made on a small scale, but it is none 
the less important on that account, since it proves that, in ordi- 
nary circumstances, difference of waters would not be an abso- 
lute obstacle to the acclimating of foreign fish. 

The same gentleman was afterwards charged by the Minister 
of Marine with the duty of inspecting the fisheries of our coasts. 
The report, in which were embodied the observations made in 
the course of this mission, has remained unpublished, and it is 
to be regretted that the learned ichthyologist was not able to 
continue and extend these researches, to which his previous 
studies so naturally called him. 

It is worthy of notice what wise circumspection Messrs. de 
Quatrefages and Milne Edwards have employed in presenting the 
advantages which rural economy might derive from the method 
of artificial fecundation. They have incited the proprietors to 

1 Bulletin of the Society of Agriculture de l'Herault, July, 1852. 
8 Memoirs of the Society of Agriculture of Lyons, May, 1853. 

3 Importanza economica dei pesci e del Coro allevamento artificiale. 

4 Report on the Species of Fish in Prussia, which might be imported and 
acclimated in the fresh waters of France. 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 41 

attempts which appeared likely to be advantageous, but without 
always promising them certain results. M. Coste has proceeded 
with less reserve. With unlimited confidence in the future of 
pisciculture, he has allowed no occasion to pass without exalting 
the benefits which it will confer. In his first report, at the close 
of the year 1850, he declared already " that there is no branch 
of industry or husbandry, which, with less chance of loss, oilers 
an easier certainty of profit." l Later he speaks with enthusiasm 
of the means, tried during a century, of providing for the re- 
populating of the waters. Most certainly it is with excellent 
intentions, and, doubtless, in the hope of sustaining the efforts 
of experimenters, that M. Coste thus undertakes to guarantee 
future results ; but is it not rather to be feared that, in magni- 
fying too greatly some partial successes, he may compromise the 
general success of the undertaking. Meanwhile, though these 
absolute affirmations seem to justify, to some extent, some criti- 
cisms of which the learned Professor has been the object, they 
cannot diminish his share in the improvements recently made 
in the method of Jacobi. 

M. Coste first put in practice the means proposed by the 
Baron de Riviere for transporting the "mounting" or the young 
eels, and raising them in confined spaces. 1 After having brought 
this mounting from the mouth of the Orne to the College of 
France, in flat paniers, overlaid with aquatic plants, he gave 
them for nourishment a hash composed of the flesh of animals, 
which do not serve for food of that of molluses and earth insects. 
The little eels which, on arriving, had an average length of six 
and seven centimetres, (two and one-half to three inches,) and 
a circumference of one centimetre, had arrived, after twenty- 
eight months of this diet, at thirty-three centimetres of length, 
and seven of circumference. M. Coste remarks with reason, 
that the corpses of the vertebrated animals, which are not fit 
for the food of man, might be made useful in this manner. He 
adds that the noxious insects would serve quite as well to fatten 
the fish. " Thus a great service would be rendered to agricul- 
ture, since it would, in the end, be delivered of one of its 
scourges." It is to be regretted that the learned Professor has 
not entered into any details upon the best method of capturing 

1 Practical Instructions upon Pisciculture, p. 3i. 
6 



42 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

these insects, which the cultivators have so great an interest in 
getting rid of, even if they could not make a profitable use of 
them. 

The author of the Practical Instructions upon Pisciculture 
has been at length induced to take charge of the organization 
of a vast establishment of artificial fecundation. In 1850 the 
two engineers of the canal from the Rhone to the Rhine, Messrs. 
Detzern and Berthol, after having visited La Bresse on the 
invitation of the Prefect of the Doubs, had applied at Hunin- 
gue the me J hod of Remy and Gdhin. Upon the basis of their 
first experiments they had undertaken hypothetical calculations, 
from which it appeared that the present population of the 
waters of France does not exceed twenty-five millions of fish, 
producing annually less than six millions of francs ($1,200,000) 
— which figure is really much too large — while, if the process 
of artificial fecundation were everywhere introduced, the num- 
ber of fish would be raised, after four years, to three thousand 
one hundred and seventy-seven millions, and would produce a 
revenue of nine hundred millions of francs (tflSO^OOjOOO. 1 ) 
At Lochlebrunn, some kilometres from Huningue, Messrs. 
Detzern and Berthol had established the foundations of a large 
preserve, where in 1852 they operated numerous fecundations, 
by means of a hatching box, which in no respect differs from 
that of Jacobi. They assert that they have there obtained a 
cross of the trout and salmon. 2 

The minister of agriculture directed Mr. Coste to visit the 
new establishment. In a report, favorable to the labors of 
Messrs. Berthol and Detzern, 3 the professor of the College of 
France asked for and he succeeded in obtaining a considerable 
development of the fish preserve or piscif actor//, as he proposed 
to call it. He brought into use on a large scale a hatching 
apparatus which we shall have to describe, adopted all the meas- 
ures which he thought most fit, and in his memoir upon the 
means of restocking the waters, of France he undertook, before 
the Academy of Science, to make a delivery in June, 1853, of 

1 Artificial Fecundation of Fish. Society of Emulation of the Doubs, p. 18. 
1851. 

2 Report upon the facts proved at Huningue from May 8, 1851, to May 7, 
1852. 

^ Practical Instructions in Pisciculture, p. 96. 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 43 

six hundred thousand trout and salmon, large enough to be 
thrown into our rivers. We have not visited the establishment 
of Huningue, and known not whether it is organized in a way 
to fulfil a part of the promises which its founders have often 
- put forward ; but from the information which lias reached us 
from several quarters, it would seem that their success has not 
always been as complete as was hoped for at first. It is then 
much to be feared that after four years, and even more, the 
establishment of Huningue will not have succeeded in alone 
restocking with fish all the waters of France, and in making 
them produce the nine hundred millions of francs promised by 
Messrs. Berthol and Detzern. 

However this may be, the relations established between this 
piscifadory and the College of France, have furnished to M. 
Coste an opportunity of making some curious observations on 
the transport of the eggs, and the duration of their vitality 
after having been taken from the water. Some eggs of salmon 
and trout, sent from Mulhousen by the diligence, were hatched 
in great numbers at the College of France. The precaution 
had simply been taken of surrounding them with moist aquatic 
herbs in a tin box pierced with holes on the upper side. 1 Other 
eggs, artificially fecundated, arranged in layers with wet sand 
in a pine box, remained thus two months in a cold chamber. 
At the end of this time, they were only corrugated ; but having 
placed the box in water to moisten them through the sand, M. 
Coste saw them soon resume their natural appearance, and 
they hatched soon after. 

To render possible in his laboratory the experiments which he 
had undertaken, M. Coste had to adopt an apparatus occupying 
but little space, and for which a simple thread of water would 
suffice. The arrangements which he chose, are very simple. 
This apparatus, which, by the way, we have often seen in ope- 
ration, is an assemblage of little troughs, arranged like steps 
on each side of an upper trough which serves to supply all the 
others. The bottom of each trough is covered with a bod of 
gravel. A stop-cock lets fall a continuous thread of water into 
one end of the upper trough. A current is thus created 
towards the other end, and there an opening at the sides giving 

1 Comptes Rendus of the Academy of Sciences, Vol. xxxiii., p. 124. 1852. 



44 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

it passage to right and left, it breaks into two falls of water 
which go to feed the two troughs placed immediately below. 
These last have also openings by which the water falls into the 
lower troughs, the number of which may be increased at 
pleasure. 

After the hatching obtained by this apparatus, M. Coste was 
able to inclose two thousand young salmon into a canal of baked 
earth, having fifty-five centimetres in length, (twenty-one inches,) 
fifteen in breadth, and eight in depth, where, says he, the cur- 
rent is kept up by a simple thread of water of the size of a straw. 
He gave them for nourishment & paste formed of muscular flesh 
reduced to fine fibres, in preference to the boiled blood of which 
R(Jmy and Gehin had made use. A salmon raised in this man- 
ner in an artificial pond, two metres in length, -(eighty inches,) 
and fifty centimetres in breadth, (nineteen and one-half inches.) 
was, at the age of six months, larger than those of the same age 
taken in the Scottish rivers, and represented in the work pub- 
lished under the assumed name of Ephemera. 1 Such are the 
principal results to be ascribed to M. Coste. He has recently 
collected his memoirs and reports into a volume, under the title 
of Practical Instructions upon Pisciculture. He sets forth in 
these instructions the knowledge previously acquired, and those 
which he has drawn from his personal experience, and he adopts 
some of the improvements introduced by M. Millet in the prac- 
tice of the new industry. We regret that the author of this 
little work, written with much elegance and clearness, has not 
oftener cited the sources from which his information is taken. 

The same day upon which M. Coste presented his work to the 
Academy of Sciences, M. de Quatrefages read before this learned 
body some researches upon the milt of certain fresh water fish. 2 
The question here treated of is fundamental, and before it had 
been resolved, it was impossible to use the necessary precision 
in artificial fecundations. This labor is then of great impor- 
tance in the double point of view of comparative physiology and 
the application of zoology. We know by the experiments of 

1 The Book of the Salmon, by Ephemera, assisted by Arthur Young. See 
also the Agronomic Annals, Vol. i., p. 234. 1851. 

2 Comptes llendus of the Academy of Sciences, session of May 30, 1853, 
Vol. xxxvi., p. 936 ; Annals of the Natural Sciences, third series, Vol. xix., 
p. 341. 1853. 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 45 

Provost, of Geneva, and of M. Dumas, that the milt owes its 
physiological properties to the presence of animalcules, which 
move in a manner very peculiar, and that all fecundating power 
disappears the moment that these animalcules die. Now, M. de 
Quatrefages shows that the duration of these movements is 
extremely short in the case of fish, even in the most favorable 
circumstances. Thus, in the milt of the brochet, diluted with 
water, all vitality ceases after eight minutes and ten seconds. 
The animalcules of the mullet are all dead after three minutes 
and ten seconds, and those of the carp after only three minutes. 
This period of activity is still more limited for the perch and 
barbel, since it only reaches two minutes forty seconds for the 
former, and two minutes ten seconds for the latter. Neither is 
it equal for all the animalcules of the same fish, and half of them 
perish in much less time. Besides, the preceding figures are 
taken at the degree of heat most favorable to the duration of 
these movements, and even slight variations above or below this 
point destroy them with great rapidity. The temperature which 
maintains longest the vitality of the animalcules is, for winter 
fish, like the trout, forty-one to forty-eight degrees of Fahrenheit ; 
for those of the early spring, fifty to fifty-five degrees ; for those 
of later spring, as the carp and the perch, sixty-three to sixty- 
eight ; and for the summer kinds, seventy-seven to eighty- seven. 
When the temperature somewhat exceeds these limits, the 
increase of energy on the part of the animalcules, compensates, 
to a certain extent, for the shorter duration of their vitality. 
These results apply to those which are disseminated through 
the water ; when they remain united in small masses, they die 
much more slowly. The peculiarities of the milt may thus be 
preserved for a much longer time, when it is not diluted, and 
especially when it is kept at a very low temperature. It may 
even be frozen without causing, in all cases, the death of the 
animalcules. " M. Millet, who has aided me in all these re- 
searches," says M. de Quatrefages, " has thought of putting 
the milt with ice into a tin box, so that the water may run out 
as the ice melts, and then to arrange this box in a second wooden 
one, pierced with very small holes, and itself filled with ice." 
Thanks to these precautions, the learned academician has been 
able to preserve the milt in a serviceable condition during sixty- 
four hours. It is worthy of remark that the fecundating pro- 



46 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

perty disappears first in that part of the male organ where the 
liquid is most completely elaborated, and endures some time 
longer in the deeper parts. 

These facts, taken together, will explain most of the failures 
resulting from operations apparently well conducted. They 
show that the manipulations must be accomplished with great 
quickness, and careful attention must be paid to the temperature 
of the water. We may conclude from them also that the sea- 
son of spawning in certain localities must vary in accordance 
with the atmospheric phenomena — that the short vitality of 
the milt is one of the causes which oppose the crossing #f the 
different species in nature, and that the hitherto unexplained 
instinct which leads the trout and salmon to mount to the 
sources of water-courses, is owing to the need felt by these 
animals of finding a degree of temperature suitable to the 
fecundation and development of their eggs. M. de Quatrefages 
has also deduced from his researches data of great value for 
practice, and eminently suited to regulating the methods of 
artificial fecundation. 1 The results contained in the memoir of 
M. de Quatrefages give to these methods a scientific regularity, 
which they have wanted hitherto, and tend to endow piscicul- 
ture with fixed and precise rules. 

To complete the summary picture of the progress which pisci- 
culture has made from antiquity to our time, and to show its 
present condition, it remains to point out the numerous and 
important improvements which are owing to M. Millet, inspec- 
tor of waters and forests. 2 

It is a well known fact that fish do not deposit all their spawn 

1 Since the male liquid, completely elaborated, loses first its fecundating pro- 
perties, only that should be used in doubtful cases which is pressed from the 
milt itself. The vitality of the animalcules not being destroyed by cold in the 
male organ, the frozen milt is not to be rejected as useless. If the fecundation 
cannot be made till after the death of the animal, it is well to take out the milt 
and preserve it in a wet cloth. In view of the extreme shortness of life of the 
animalcules, and of the obstacles which the swelling of the envelope may op- 
pose to fecundation, it is useful in the case of certain species to pour the eggs 
and the male product simultaneously into the same vessel, and thus to render 
the contact instantaneous. Of course the water must never be first impreg- 
nated with the milt. 

2 Report to the Director-General of Waters and Forests, upon the repopu- 
lating of the navigable and floating water-courses, by M. de Saint Ouen, 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 47 

at once. The eggs do not all arrive together at a state of 
maturity. "When left to herself the female returns several 
times to the place of spawning, where the male always follows 
her, and it is only after a certain number of days that the 
delivery of the eggs is complete. Although it has been already 
remarked that only the ripe eggs leave the ovary and find their 
way into the abdominal cavity, yet the advice was always given 
to effect the artificial fecundation at once, by forcing out the 
spawn by pressure on the sides of the belly of the female. 
Without doubt, this practice in many cases was attended with a 
violence as injurious to the development of a great number of 
the products as to the health of the animal thus operated upon. 
Struck with these inconveniences, and convinced of the 
advantages always following from a strict imitation of nature, 
M. Millet took pains to gather the eggs only in portions and in 
several days, as they became completely ripe, and to let them 
fall into the water simultaneously with the milt of the male. 
As captivity has often a bad effect upon the generative func- 
tions of fishes, M. Millet only takes them at the moment of 
making the fecundations, and restores them to the river imme- 
diately after, at the same time tethering them with a pack- 
thread passed through the gills. They live very well in this 
condition, and do not perceptibly suffer from it. M. Millet has 
also sometimes made use of artificial spawning holes which call 
to mind those of Lund, but are more perfect. These are a 
kind of double bottomed cages, the first consisting of an open 
framework of bars, the second of a movable sieve of metallic 

Administrator of the Forests. March, 1853. Annals of the Forests, pp. 
272 and 429. July and August, 1853. Independently of the various memoirs 
upon pisciculture, which we have hitherto cited, it may be useful to consult 
the report of a commission of the king of Holland, having for title, Iland- 
liedung tol do Kumtmatige Veremenigouldigen var Vischen, 1853 ; some 
notes of M. de Camnont in the Norman Annual for 1850, and in the same 
collection an Essay upon the Multiplication of Fish in the department ofW^a 
Manchi, by M. G. Sward de Becunlieu, 1854, as well as some letters of the 
marquis of Wibraye and the count of Pontgibard, 1854; in the Analytic 
Sketch of the Labors of the Academy of Rouen, a note by M. Bergasse on 
Artificial Fecundation applied to the Salmon, 1853; and some Researches 
into the Natural History of the Salmon, by M. A. de Bignon, 1853 ; finally, 
various observations of M. M. Gehin, Richard de Behagne in the Bulletin of 
the Agricultural Society of Paris, Vol. vi., p. 4G1, and 489, 1851 ; of M. Noblet, 
ibidem Vol vii., p. 403, 1852, and of M. Quenard, ibidem Vol. viii., p. 95, 1853. 



43 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

cloth. The females, by rubbing against the bars, let fall their 
eggs which drop upon the sieve. The males being introduced 
into the apparatus at the same time, it generally happens that 
the fecundation is effected naturally. This method of gather- 
ing has the advantage of losing no portion of the eggs, while 
there is risk of this in holding the female by a cord in rivers. 

The hatching apparatus used by M. Millet varies a little with 
circumstances, but remains always simple, convenient and 
economical. If the development of the egg is to take place 
out of the water in which the parents live, whether in an apart- 
ment, or under a shed, a vessel of any description is taken, hav- 
ing a capacity of thirty to thirty-five litres, (eight to nine gal- 
lons,) and on the bottom of this, gravel, sand and charcoal are 
heaped up so as to constitute a filter. A purified water runs 
from this reservoir hy a stop-cock situated underneath it, and 
falls into troughs placed like steps, which may be multiplied at 
pleasure. This arrangement is entirely similar, as we see, to 
that which M. Coste had already chosen, but M. Millet has 
added an improvement, which, we hasten to say, the learned 
professor of the College of France has at once adopted in his 
turn. 

However pure running water may be, it always bears with it 
and deposits at the bottom, which it covers, foreign particles, 
which, if they rested upon the eggs, would finally surround 
them with a sort of slime favorable to the development of byssus 
and mould. To meet this objection, M. Millet thought of sus- 
pending the eggs a little below the surface of the water. M. Yogt 1 
had already taken the precaution to place them in a muslin bag, 
permeable on all sides, which he threw into the lake after hav- 
ing fastened it to a stake, or kept it in place by a large stone. 
Starting upon the same principle, M. Millet has arrived at a 
surer and more complete result. He places the eggs upon sieves, 
which little rods, sliding on the edges of the tubs, hold at the 
desired height. This skilful experimenter has successively em- 
ployed sieves of various substances, of hair, of silk, of willow, 
&c, and has finally given the preference to galvanized metallic 
cloth, which have more solidity and durability, do not spoil, are 



1 Embryology of the Salmon, Natural History of Fresh Water Fish, by L. 
Aga?siz, p. 16. 1812. 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 49 

easily cleaned by the help of a brush, and are only very rarely 
attacked by sea-weed. 

The expense of outfit of such an apparatus is quite insignifi- 
cant. The working consists merely in filling the reservoir every 
morning and evening, in moving the sieves once a day, and 
taking away the eggs which may become opaque. For many 
years the eggs of trout, of salmon, of the umber, *fcc.,have been 
developed in this way, and hatched in considerable quantities 
in the same apartment which the experimenter occupies at 
Paris, in the middle of the rue Castiglione. 

When the process can be carried on in the water of a stream 
itself, of a lake or of a pond, M. Millet recommends the employ- 
ment of double sieves of metallic cloth, which may be kept at a 
suitable height by the help of floaters, and which follow all the 
changes of the level of the water. For the species which spawn 
in sleeping water, he lines the double sieve with aquatic plants, 
or limits himself to placing the eggs in large shallow tubs with 
plants which prevent the water from corruption. When the 
fecundated eggs are to be transported to great distances, M. 
Millet advises placing them in a flat box, in quite thin layers, 
between two wet cloths. In this state he has sent them to 
Florence, where they have reached the hands of M. Vaj and 
the Professor Cozzi, after a journey of twenty or twenty-five days, 
and have not failed to hatch soon after. The use of moist linen 
is preferable to that of aquatic plants ; the linen dries less rap- 
idly, and facilitates the unpacking, which, in the other cases, 
requires much time and care. The Marquis of Vibraye, to 
whom the Sologue owes so many useful improvements, and who 
has already introduced on his estates numerous trout produced 
by artificial fecundation, has also made use, with advantage, of 
small wadded cushions. When the eggs to be dealt with are 
very delicate, and are to be transported during the summer, 
M. Millet sometimes employs the little portable ice box, of which 
we have already given the description. 

As soon as the young fish have completely absorbed their 
umbilical -sesieule, that is to say, some weeks after the hatching, 
the author of these curious experiments is of opinion that it is 
best not to try to nourish them in captivity, but to dismiss them 
at once into the waters where they will have to live, taking care 
however, to place them suitably where they will find the spawn 



50 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

of frogs, lymnites, planorbes, &c. They should commence at 
once to seek for their prey, and thus avoid the suffering from 
change of water, of nourishment, and of habits, to which they 
will necessarily be subject, if raised artificially in basins not 
communicating with the waters which they must inhabit. 

It is principally in the departments of the Eure, the Aisne 
and the Oise, that M. Millet, has put in practice these various 
methods. Affidavits emanating from the local authorities, bear 
witness to the important results which he has obtained. M. 
Millet has conducted, at the same time, a series of delicate ob- 
servations, which have already led to some happy applications. 1 
He has examined the action of salt or brackish water on the 
eggs of fish, which leave the sea to spawn in fresh water, and 
he has seen that it is injurious to their development in ordinary 
cases, which gives the practical reason of the emigration of these 
animals. Nevertheless, salt, which would destroy the healthy 
eggs, has the singular property of healing them, when attacked 
by white spots. These spots, which probably spread from the 
service to the centre, and would lead to the destruction of the 
eggs, if allowed to increase, disappear in water very slightly 
salted, and when they are taken in time, the young fish may 
thus be saved. It results also, from the observations of M. Millet, 
that the mortality of the eggs always reaches its maximum at 
the epoch when the embryo begins to form ; accordingly, he 
advises transporting them only when the eyes become visible, 
or rather immediately after the fecundation. He has remarked 
finally, that the white spots on the one hand, and the sea-weed 
and byssus on the other, attack much more rarely the eggs of 
trout and salmon, at a low temperature, than in one which 
exceeds fifty-four degrees. 

Here terminates the rapid exposition of the applications fur- 
nished by zoology to the economy of ponds and water-courses, 
and of the progress which this branch of industry has made of 
late years. The labors of Remy and G6hin, and those of M. de 
Quatrefages, of M. Coste and M. Millet, represent the present 
state of this department of agricultural science. To them be- 



1 Comptes Rendus of the Academy of Sciences, Vol. xxxviii., session of 
December 26, 1853. 



1857.] SENATE— No. 193. 51 

longs the honor of having regulated and perfected the methods, 
and of having determined the basis of a cultivation, before very 
vague and precarious. 

III. 

The processes which we have analyzed are not all equally 
adapted for easy and profitable application. It remains then to 
compare the respective advantages of them, to determine the 
combined measures which pisciculturists ought to adopt. 

The first care to be taken, when it is desired to stock a river 
or pond, is to learn what species of fish will best adapt them- 
selves to the circumstances which happen to be united there. 
To escape the danger of certain failure, it is first of all necessary 
that the nature, the ordinary temperature, the depth, and the 
various qualities of the waters to be enriched, should agree with 
the instincts, habits and way of life of the animals to be de- 
veloped there. These recommendations are found in all books 
upon the subject, but cannot be too often repeated. It is most 
certainly from the neglect of these proprieties, and want of 
appreciation of them, that certain pisciculturists have seen 
their attempts miscarry, when they were otherwise skilfully 
executed. 

When, therefore, the ground, as it were, has been studied in 
advance, and it has been determined what sort of fish has the 
best chance of prospering there, the individuals necessary for 
the multiplication of the chosen species should not be procured 
except at the very season of spawning, since very often the pro- 
ducts are spoiled in the bodies of fishes which are condemned to 
close captivity. This inconvenience does not present itself if 
the animals can be placed in reserve in inclosures near the 
rivers or ponds in which they have been caught. Otherwise 
they may be held by a cord in the same places where they have 
lived. It is important, before effecting the fecundation, to pay 
attention to the temperature of the water, which has so great 
an influence upon the properties of the milt, as M. de Quatrefages 
has so clearly shown, and probably also upon the vitality of the 
egg itself. Although M. Vogt has seen the eggs of the palee 1 

1 A kind allied to the salmon. 



52 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. [May, 

prosper after they had been taken in ice, this extreme cold is 
generally sufficient to destroy them. 

The gathering of the male and female elements should be 
made on different occasions and in several days. It seems use- 
ful, in many cases, to guard the products from all exterior 
influences, and not to take them from their natural medium. 
For this purpose a male and female are taken and inclined near 
each other, at the surface of the water. They are then bent 
gently upward, which produces a strong contraction, and gen- 
erally serves to create a flow of the ripe products. If the exit 
offers any difficulty, it may be assisted by passing the finger under 
the belly, but without any effort. The simultaneous, or almost 
simultaneous mixture of the eggs and the milt, is necessary in 
most cases, since with certain fish, as the trout, the animalcules 
of the milt do not live even a moment, and with others, as the 
carp, the mucilaginous envelope of the egg swells rapidly in 
the water, and then opposes itself to the impregnation. For the 
last reason, it is important always to refrain from washing the 
eggs before fecundation, as some persons had advised doing. 

The eggs once fecundated are placed in an apparatus like 
those of M. Coste and M. Millet, but it appears to us preferable 
in all cases, when possible, to employ the double sieve or float- 
ing inculator of the last experimenter. The fecundation is 
then effected in the lower part of the sieve, placed in a tub full 
of Avater, and after the cover is put on, the whole is transported 
to the river which is to be furnished ; in this way, the spawn 
undergoes no change of water, from its exit from the belly of 
the female to the period of its development. If the eggs are 
unencumbered, they are allowed to fall to the bottom of the 
sieve. If they are adherent, like those of the carp, the tench, 
or the barbel, care is taken to introduce beforehand into the 
sieve some aquatic plants or twigs. The little apparatus is 
furnished with floaters, and fastened to stakes by a cord, by 
which it is easy to draw it to the bank, when it is to be examined. 
After the young fish are hatched, and their umbilical vescicule 
is completely absorbed, the sieve is opened, and they are thus 
dispersed in the very places where they are to live. With this 
vicA\ r , shallpw places are chosen, which the fry generally prefer, 
and which are not frequented by the large fish, or rather ill- 
closures near the water-courses. The fish of this early age 



1857.] • SENATE— No. 193. 53 

have great agility, and commonly escape the pursuit of their 
enemies by squatting among the pebbles, and concealing them- 
selves in the grass or the roots of trees. They then feed natu- 
rally upon lymnites, planorbes, small worms, or the spawn of 
frogs, but it soon becomes useful to throw them the refuse of 
the shambles or the kitchen, and, generally, as M. Coste has 
advised, all animal substances which are not made use of. It 
would seem, however, that some of these substances may become 
injurious to the fish, and M. Sivard de Beaulien has remarked 
that his trout always died after eating earth salamanders. The 
putrefaction of the substances which are not eaten, offers no 
inconvenience in a mass of water frequently renewed like that 
of a brook, while for this reason, and many others, the artificial 
nourishment of young fish in narrow reservoirs is almost imprac- 
ticable. They should, therefore, always be dispersed after the 
absorption of their vesicules, without attempts to raise them 
painfully in small apparatus. 

These various operations are, as we see, very simple and easy, 
and may be brought to a good result by any body with little 
outlay of time and expense ; but it is evident that success depends 
greatly upon the tact and foresight of the operator, and that 
here, as in all branches of industry, individual skill will always 
have great influence upon the result. Without doubt, also, a 
prolonged and sufficiently extensive experience will soon attain 
to further improvements in the application of the new methods, 
and reduce greatly the chances of failure. Every thing, then, 
gives reason to hope that at an early period pisciculture will be 
naturalized among the useful sciences, and that it is destined 
to solve one of the important terms of the great problem of 
cheap living. 

This result, so desirable, would be greatly expedited if the 
government should decide to take some energetic measures. It 
should cause to be completely revised, by competent men, the 
legislation of the fluvial and marine fisheries, and should bring 
the system of artificial fecundation into operation in all the 
fresh waters of France, at the same time that a service of obser- 
vation and vigilance should be organized upon our coasts. In 
uttering this wish, we are only the echo of all the learned men 
and economists who have touched upon this question. 

Already, indeed, the state has made a first step in the path 



54 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. {May, '57. 

where we should like to see it wholly enter. It has decreed 
the piscifactory of Huningue. We are far from denying the 
services which this establishment may render by its conse- 
quences ; but it is clearly proved that it will never suffice for 
entirely restocking the waters of France, and meets very imper- 
fectly the present wants of pisciculture. If there are too great 
obstacles to putting this vast trial in practice over the whole 
surface of the country, it would at least be easy for the state to 
undertake it in more limited, though still considerable propor- 
tions, and without charging the budget with any new burden. 
For this purpose it need only profit by the resources offered by 
the administration of waters and forests. In fact, this admin- 
istration disposes of a surface of canals and brooks which reaches 
nearly 8,000 kilometres, (5,000 miles,) and has a personal force 
quite ready and trained to the various practices for the hus- 
bandry of the waters. The number of its simple fisheries police 
amount to 427, without counting the general police, sub-inspec- 
tors, and inspectors which direct the others, and who are all 
prepared by their previous studies for applications of this kind. 
Here is a service extensively organized, which would be admi- 
rably adapted to experiments of pisciculture on a large scale, 
and which would not even thereby be turned from its legitimate 
functions. 

It is to be hoped that those who are interested will not fail 
to be struck with these easy advantages, and that they will try 
to attain to at least a part of the results promised by the new 
industry. Relying upon their own resources, the proprietors 
have not hesitated to undergo the risks of the trial ; but apart 
from their isolated and limited efforts, does it not belong to the 
state to give prosperity and extension to the methods devised 
by Jacobi, and already carried by men of science in France, to 
so high a degree of perfection. 

JULES HAIME. 

Revue des Deux Mondes, June, 1854. 



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